Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-08-27
AT FULL SPEED.
RATES OF MOTION OF THINGS c.
lESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL.

lES1lAl AND TERRESTRIAL.
A seventh Rate Star Travels Two Hun
dred Mile. Per Second-RaIiway Trains
Slow Pac--spesd Of Thought-TraveI
Of Enthusiastically.
The radical origin of speed seems 10 be
In the direction Of extending. increasing,
doing well, having room. There could
not well DE more striking illustration Of
these last phases of the word than 1880
Groombridge tearing headlonS through
space at the rate of 200 miles in a second.
Quite seventh rate, star, tcs,, although
the best on record SO far 1t Is q speed
which goes rs much beyond the grasp Of
imagination as II outstrips the swiftness
of our nerve messages which only do a
trifie of the twelfth of u mile in the same
time. The only way to get some idea Of
No. 1905 gait OF going is TO go 10 work
somewhat thus: The fastest running now
made by English railways is perhaps the
Great Northern's lO5 miles from Gran
than in llS minutes; but trains have
been driven 100 miles an hour; double it.
and we cover in an hour what this par
ticular but by no means bright star does
in "A second. Then we must multiply the
800 miles ali hour velocity by sixty. and
then again increase that sixty fold more
before we come up with 1880 Groom
bridge. He goes 9SS times As fast as
sound, S65 times faster than a poor Mar
TIM Henry bullet, and he can give the sun
| lin his journey toward Hercules 1875 miles
second and lick easily. One begins to
feel sorry for the sun worshipers.
SOMETHING SLOW.
! 1t is relief, after this, to think Of
something slow, such as French express
or the creeping of the blood corpuscles
through the capillarieS Of the retina,
| where they give those curious specters
that at times annoy good sight; 1t takes
| them an hour to move a foot. Snails are
race horses TO this, doing six good, long
PAGES in the same time. Burck hardt's
best camels Of the Hedjaz took ten hours
| to cover Ill miles After all is said and
done, lost and won, the speed Of "the boat
race is but some thirteen miles an hour;
a common house fly in its sauntering
flight goes third faster. A drop Of rain
falls at the rate Of twelve yards second,
and man can throw n 1one al the rate
of about thirty-siX miles an hour. As
quick as thought is we'll worn old say
ing; but that may mean but a jog trot old
gait, too-witness the legendary Scot who
WAS told joke in the coach at Berwick,
and when he got to Nottingham slapped
his leg in triumph and said, Il hae it
noor' AT the rate OF a hunt" was a
phrase Of our forefathers, generally used
in bad sense, though. of things that
were going wrong But what can horse
do, after all,-some forty miles an hour
for short distances: and such names as
Eclipse and Flying Childers were given
before the Scotch limited or the Wild
Irishman We're dreamed Of
A greyhound can 60 at the rate Of
about tifty-seven miles an hour Four
carrier pigeons of Count karoly's flew
from Pesth To Paris in 1884 at the rate Of
ia miles an hour, kept up for seven
hours: but swallows are computed to do
$50 and swifts rs much as 200 Ariel,
who rode upon the curled clouds and
drank the air before him, might be men
toned here, and that-perhaps il was no
more than a threat Of putting a girdle
round about the earth in forty minutes
was dangerously near the later discovered
crime of disrespect to the equator, which
takes twenty-four hours. at l,O40 miles an
hour, to every turn. In very high old
astrological time the brag might have
brought that tricky spirit" within the
blasphemy laws. Tides do not give land
lubbers, or sailors either, a very high no
ton of speed. but Whewell has calculated
that in the North Pacific the tide commo-
ton travels at the considerable rate Of
l,SOO miles an hour, while a surface tenn
pest wave moves but fifty. But the COM
motion Of a proper earthquake, like that
Of Granada, in December, 1884. beats the
tides hollow. The shock reached Green
wich in seven minutes, being some $40
miles An hour.
HOW SOUND TRAVELS.
An American ice yacht will skim along
ut seventy miles an hour, Just beating the
eagle and the packages in the postoffice
pneumatic tubes. Sound, which travels
but some ,1O6 feet in q second through
temperate air. is sent along eighteen times
as fast as that, or about four piles a sec
ond, through white pine timber. The fine
old fashioned house ghost was not much
Of gadabout, being Of . domestic and
even mopish turn, and We do not know
what the usual speed Of a bran new
spook is, but it can scarcely exceed that
II we only admit that the builder of a row
Of houses, or q big country house, puts,
accidentally or Of purpose, the timbers Of
one room or dwelling end on to those of
another. the noises of haunted house
would be easily explained by the superior
ability shown by a deal scantling for con
yeying sound from q distance. and many
An innocent poor spook would be let off
free
Ii is not quite modest to speak about
ourselves in all this wonderful comnany:
but modesty. after all, is but a secondary